


There are no words

by wesseling



Category: Life on Mars (UK)
Genre: 4-year-old Sam Tyler, Life on Mars Ficathon (2009), Originally Posted on LiveJournal, my take on why Sam sees the Test Card Girl
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-02
Updated: 2017-07-02
Packaged: 2018-11-22 13:52:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,050
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11381541
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wesseling/pseuds/wesseling
Summary: Sammy is having nightmares.





	There are no words

“Look, Heather, I’m really worried. Since Vic left us Sammy has been having nightmares and you should see some of the pictures he draws.”

“What is it supposed to be?”

“I’m not sure myself, but take a look at his coloured pencils.” Ruth emptied the pen box on the table. Three of the pens clearly stood out as they were nearly not existent anymore due to excessive use. Heather took a closer look and realized that they were all a different shade of red. She leaned back again and gazed up at her sister whose eyes urged her to say something helpful.

“Maybe red is just his favourite colour at the moment.”

“Heather.” Ruth rolled her eyes in annoyance.

“Alright, alright. Maybe it is significant that he uses a lot of red in his pictures. Have you asked him about his bad dreams?”

“He doesn’t really tell me what they are about. He’s just so …scared. I can hear him crying and I…and I dash into his room…and his back is all wet and he is shivering…and at first it is really hard to wake him up…he’s so caught up in his dreams, it scares me.” Ruth took hold of her tea cup, not drinking anything simply holding onto the cup as if it was a lifeline. “I know it sounds ridiculous but when I’m in this situation I’m thinking: What if I can’t wake him? What if he stays like this? I don’t know what to do anymore.” And slowly the tears began to roll down her cheeks.

Immediately Heather was at her sister’s side. “Don’t cry, Ruthie. We’ll work something out. I’ll ask around. Maybe some of my friends at work know somebody, okay?” Heather rubbed her sisters back, trying to sooth her. “I know it’s been tough for you, for both of you, since he’s gone, but it’ll get better. I promise. Stop crying now. I’m here for you.”

*

First there was black. A shiny black. Then there was green. A warm green. Then there was red. A good red. A red like the football team he liked so much. But then the red changed. It was not good anymore, it was bad. A bad red. And it was everywhere. He wanted it to go away, but it wouldn’t. It scared him, but it wouldn’t go away. It was becoming more and more and his fear was becoming more and more and his heart was beating faster and faster and he couldn’t breathe anymore and the red, the bad red was coming to get him and he couldn’t run away, so he started screaming, screaming, screaming…and then his Mummy was there and the bad red was finally gone.

*

“Sam? Can you hear me?” Sammy was so busy building his castle he hadn’t even heard the man with the glasses come in. It was late. Way past his bedtime. He had had another nightmare and hadn't been able to go back to sleep. His Mum had called Auntie Heather. She had been crying. Sammy hadn't wanted to make his Mum sad. The man knelt beside him and gave him a warm smile. “My name is Neil.” Sammy put one more block on top of his tower. “Are you a doctor?” he asked the man shyly. Sammy had heard Auntie Heather and his Mummy talking in the kitchen even though he wasn’t supposed to listen in on them. ‘Go upstairs to your room and play for a while, Sammy. Your Auntie and I have to talk about something,’ his Mummy had said, but he hadn’t listened. He had snuck downstairs again. He’d been a bad boy.

“I’m one of those doctors who can make bad dreams go away.”

Sammy gave the man a curious look. “How do you do that?”

“Do you have bad dreams, Sammy?“

Sammy shrugged his shoulders and concentrated on building his castle again. “Your Mummy has shown me this picture you've drawn.” The man was holding one of his drawings he had created to capture his nightmare. Ever since his daddy had left, he had been dreaming about her. The lady in red. There was always so much red. Sammy had thought that if he would ban her on paper than she wouldn't come to him at night any longer. She'd be trapped in this drawing. But it hadn't worked. Maybe because the drawing was not accurate enough.

He hadn't been able to find a brown pen. He knew she had brown hair, but in his pen box there was just no brown pen. So he had had used yellow instead.

“Can you tell me who that is, Sam?” Sammy shrugged his shoulders again. “I don't know her name”, he answered truthfully.

“Does she only come at night or sometimes during the day as well?”

“No, she only comes at night.”

“And she's always wearing a red dress?”

“Yes.”

“Then I think I know her.”

“You do?” Sammy’s eyes widened in surprise.

The man nodded and walked over to the television. It took a couple of seconds before the black screen came to life and the picture of a little blonde girl and her toy clown appeared on it. Sammy looked at the screen and then gave the man a quizzical look. “She doesn’t want to scare you. She just wants to play with you, to be your friend. Don’t you want to be her friend, Sammy?”

“She can’t be my friend. She’s in the telly, she can’t come out there.”

“But she does, Sammy. She visits you in your dreams, doesn’t she? So she is not inside the telly any longer.”

The man held up the drawing next to the television pointing out the resemblance between the girl on the screen and the doodle on paper.

“Sammy, your Mum told me that you move a lot. It's tough to find new friends every time, isn't it? Maybe she's your only true friend because she follows you wherever you go.”

Sammy looked at the television and decided, no, he didn’t want to be her friend. That girl wasn't real.

Doctor Neil put his hands on Sammy’s small shoulders and gave them a squeeze. Sammy looked at the girl's red dress and his stomach cramped.

“Let her be your friend, Sammy.”

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the 2009 Ficathon exchange for vermin_disciple, whose prompt was 'Ruth Tyler, Young Sam, Supernatural occurrences'.


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